Anthony Navarro speaks to a small group during his conceal carry class last Saturday at the Colorado Shooting Sports gun store, 2435 8th Ave, in Greeley. The class focused on several aspects of carrying gun including the importance safety around weapons.

Anthony Navarro, owner of Colorado Shooting Sports in Greeley, talks with students last Saturday in his concealed carry tactical pistol class as they learn to aim and shoot accurately at his range in rural Weld County. Navarro teaches his students the legal ramifications of being involved in a shooting on top of basic gun safety rules.

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Kathryn Brown vividly remembers her state of panic as she waited to hear if her teenage granddaughter was safe as news unfolded of a gunman who had opened fire in a crowded Aurora movie theater.

That shooting motivated the Kersey resident to buy a handgun of her own, and now, more than a year after the shooter wounded 58 people and killed eight men, three women and a child, Brown is applying for a permit to carry a concealed handgun.

It’s a decision she says brings her peace of mind for her own safety and that of her family.

“I want to know (my granddaughter is) safe when she’s with me,” Brown said. She is one of thousands in Weld County to apply for a concealed carry permit so far this year, far surpassing the number of residents who did the same last year.

Officials at the Weld County Sheriff’s Office have had to make adjustments such as hiring more staff to accommodate the influx of requests — which they say shows no sign of stopping anytime soon — and Sheriff John Cooke says he’ll do what it takes to keep up.

“My philosophy is (the 2003 Concealed Carry Act) was passed so more people can get concealed weapon permits, and we’re going to do everything possible to make sure that they can,” Cooke said.

Off the charts

In November and December of last year, the sheriff’s office began to see a sharp increase in the number of requests for concealed carry permits. In the first part of 2013, the office was processing an unprecedented 500 permits per month, more than five times the number that was being processed each month in early 2012.

Cooke said the skyrocketing number of requests is likely due to residents who are concerned that national and state legislators will diminish their rights to have guns in the wake of mass shootings like the one in Aurora.

“I believe there’s an assault in Washington and down in the statehouse at the Capitol on people’s gun rights,” Cooke said. “People are fearful and want to do something about it.”

For some, like Brown, the larger concern was safety after the mass shootings last fall.

Brown said she’s not opposed to reasonable gun legislation, but she lives alone and wants to be able to carry her weapon with her at all times.

“I’m doing it for protection,” she said.

Cooke said he’s seeing a large increase in the number of women who apply for permits, from an average of about 20 percent in recent years to an average of about 40 percent currently.

“Having a gun is a good equalizer for self-protection,” Cooke said. “People want it for protection. A Smith and Wesson or Colt will level the playing field.”

Keeping up

During Cooke’s first full year as sheriff in 2003, his office processed about 300 concealed carry permits. That number remained fairly steady until 2008, the year President Barack Obama was elected for the first time, when the office processed 800 permit requests.

Last year, the office processed 2,022 permit requests, more than Adams, Denver and Boulder counties. The office had surpassed that number by March 2013 and has processed 2,857 this year alone.

When numbers began to spiral upward, Cooke said his office had a hard time processing the requests. He had people who were dedicating all of their hours to concealed carry requests, forcing them to forgo other duties, and the office was paying overtime for employees to process requests on Saturdays.

Counties across the state also saw large increases, and the Colorado Bureau of Investigations — in charge of performing background checks on all applicants — went from processing applications in hours to taking days to push each application through.

Cooke said instead of limiting the number of permit requests he would process, like his counterparts in other Colorado counties, he went to the Board of Weld County Commissioners and received funding for two full-time employees whose jobs are to focus on processing concealed carry requests.

“It really was a no-brainer to get those two extra positions,” Cooke said. “It’s not taxpayer money. It’s coming out of fees.”

Cooke said counties like Denver have set hours during which residents can submit concealed carry applications, but he’ll do anything he can not to limit people getting their permits.

“I think that defeats the purpose of the law, which was intended for people to be able to carry statewide,” Cooke said. “As long as those doors are open, they can come in and turn in their paperwork.”

The sheriff’s office has seen a sharp increase in permits again from September to October, and they’re waiting to see if that increase continues after a teenage boy shot and killed a teacher before turning the gun on himself at a Nevada school, said Undersheriff Jack McGrath. McGrath said he processed a hundred permit requests on Wednesday alone.

“It really is a reflection of external events that we don’t have control over,” McGrath said.

Brown’s brother had paid for all the women in their family to take the class after shootings last fall.

After nearly 11 hours of lessons on how and where to aim a handgun, the legal repercussions of shooting a person, and a live shooting course with simulated stress situations, Brown and Hadeen walked away with their certificates to carry concealed weapons. Bailey left before the shooting portion of the class.

“I wasn’t comfortable with a gun before I took (the class) and now I am,” Brown said.

Navarro’s class goes far beyond what state law requires to qualify for a concealed carry permit.

In order to pass his course, Brown and Hadeen had to show him they could safely carry and accurately fire their handguns, even after fighting with him as a simulated attacker. They also learned the physiological affects of adrenaline and got a crash course in Colorado’s Stand Your Ground statute and other gun-related laws.

Under state law, a person is required to take a gun safety course from a certified instructor to get a concealed carry permit but is not required to fire or even hold a gun. Until a revision passed the legislature this year, a person could even take an online course to obtain a permit.

Dustin Bovee, who served two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a member of the U.S. Army’s infantry, has taken Navarro’s course five times. Bovee, of Fort Collins, said he wants to make sure he is prepared and accurate if he ever finds himself in a shooting.

“Armed and responsible gun owners in the community, they add just one more buffer between the bad guy and the innocent person,” said Bovee, who’s had a concealed carry permit in Larimer County for several years.

Bovee wasn’t required to take a course when he obtained his permit because of his recent military service. Still, he said he feels it’s his “responsibility to have a certain level of skill set.”

“Unfortunately in the state of Colorado, it’s possible to get a concealed carry permit without ever touching a gun or firing a single round,” Bovee said. “Just because you get your concealed carry permit, it’s not magic. You don’t suddenly become a good shooter.”

Navarro said he puts each of his students through a demanding course to help them understand all the challenges they’ll face ­­— physically, emotionally and legally ­— if they ever actually use their handgun to shoot another person. He said many other courses consist of an hour-long lecture on gun safety, but he wants his students to see the real thing.

“You can’t read about the fight of your life in a book,” Navarro said. “You have to do it.”

Cooke also advocates for a higher level of training for people who carry concealed handguns.

“If you’re going to get a gun for self defense, you might want to be able to hit what you’re aiming at,” Cooke said. “I encourage it very strongly.”

Still, Cooke and Navarro say they are against any state mandate that would require more training to obtain a concealed carry permit.

“I don’t think I’d advocate that state mandate because there’s not one training course that fits all,” Cooke said. “You can’t get a cookie-cutter course.”

Refusing the right to concealed carry

According to numbers submitted to the state last year, Cooke denied a much lower percentage of concealed carry permit applications than his counterparts in Denver and Adams counties. The Denver County Sheriff’s Office denied 3.1 percent of applications, Adams county denied about 2.1 percent, and Cooke denied 0.3 percent.

Still, that tiny percentage is in line with other rural counties, and he denied a slightly higher percentage than did the Boulder County sheriff last year.

Cooke says while he advocates for law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons, he’s no more lenient on those who shouldn’t have permits than other sheriffs.

He credits the 2003 Concealed Carry Act with ensuring that no county can be more or less stringent when issuing concealed carry permits.

“Some sheriffs made it harder than others, so they wanted to standardize it,” Cooke said.

Sheriffs can deny or revoke permits on several grounds, including if a person is arrested, is the subject of a restraining order, or has demonstrated mental instability. Sheriffs have the option of denying permits at their own discretion, but their denials must meet state statutes.

Sheriffs must report to the state each year on the number of permits they processed, granted, denied and revoked.

Cooke says most people he’s stripped of concealed carry privileges have been accused of driving under the influence.

Cooke said those who are arrested are prohibited from having weapons while on bond, probation or parole, so he revokes their permits and requires them to reapply.

“I put the onus back on them” to reapply for their permits, Cooke said.

Colorado statutes allow law enforcement agencies to share information on their concealed carry permit holders in order for agencies to help each other keep track of permit holders who are arrested.

Still, Cooke said, there’s really no way for him to make sure all of his permit holders are mentally sound, and he thinks that poses the most risk to public safety.

Annemarie Jensen, a lobbyist for the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police, said that the organization advocates having a central database with information on concealed carry permit holders, in part, because they say it would be easier to alert sheriffs of people with mental health holds.

“While people are stable at one point, we also know that they later become unstable. And from our point of view, a database would be valuable,” Jensen said.

Cooke, who has adamantly opposed databases in the past, said he’s not sure exactly how to keep track of any permit holders who show signs of mental illness, but he hopes legislators could find a reasonable solution.

“Let’s have a discussion about mental health and finding a way to keep the guns away from people with mental illness,” Cooke said. “It’s going to take a lot of people sitting down around a table.”

Constitutional carry

Cooke and Colorado’s other sheriffs are bound by the 2003 law that outlines requirements for issuing concealed carry permits, but Cooke says he’d rather there was no such thing as a permit in the first place.

Cooke said he believes in the concept of the constitutional carry ­— the idea that a person who is legally allowed to have a gun may carry it concealed without any special permit.

Five states ­— Vermont, Arizona, Alaska, Wyoming and Arkansas ­— have statutes that say just that. Cooke advocates that concept, saying those who are found to be in possession of weapons illegally will face severe consequences.

“If there’s a person who is carrying a concealed weapon illegally, you throw the book at them, so to speak,” Cook said.

Jensen said the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police has testified in the legislature in favor of keeping the concealed carry permit process when others have attempted to do away with it.

She said the association believes there needs to be a check up-front because some who should not legally have guns may not know it or may try to have weapons anyway.

“The reason for the permitting process is to weed out those who would be dangerous,” Jensen said.

‘Not afraid to come home’

Hadeen walked into her home one day last year to find her things were out of place and her back door had been kicked in.

“It just makes you feel really insecure in your home and violated,” Hadeen said.

She said she’s not sure if she’ll actually carry a concealed handgun or not, partly because she’d be nervous her two young boys would get a hold of it. But she feels safer knowing she can safely use a gun if she needs to.

“I would want to be able to do something instead of just stand there,” Hadeen said.

Brown said she was nervous picking up her newly purchased gun before taking Navarro’s class, but she gained confidence during the class that she plans to maintain by shooting often.